A key lifeline for the Martian crew will be communications. It is discussed elsewhere about the communications infrastructure that the crew will need.
In this post, I will cover how the Martian team will stay in contact with each other during their time on the surface, and how this translates into the technology and infrastructure they will need to accomplish this. This builds on the previous posts on required pre-preparation and focus posts on critical life support infrastructure.
ESA Deep Space Antenna. The crew who operate it are celebrating their new tenure and a new Female Site manager, Suzy Jackson. Credit: ESA
In Suit Comms
The crew will borrow technology from existing space suits used by the ISS on spacewalks. This will give them the benefit of using audio and video feed. In the same way body cams are used in a variety of professions due to increasingly cheap HD quality cameras, so too the crew can adorn their suit with cameras to document activity. This feed can be shared back to Earth for processing by human and AI's trained to look for certain features - helping to prioritise the mission exploration.
Within Habitat Comms
Despite the Human habitat likely to be quite cramped, the crew will likely not be working alongside each other at all times. As a result, a variety of options open up to the crew to enable seamless and direct communication between each other.
A clunky option could be walkie-talkies. The crew could keep a walkie-talkie on their person, and leverage the radio communications between each other.
A more useful method would leverage embedded communication systems, similar to an Amazon Echo/ Alexa or Google Home platform. This way, the crew can be connected with each other, and it opens the option for them to speak and interact with an AI.
Time will be a critical resource for the crew, with most of their time occupied with work, sleep, rest and recuperation. An AI companion will help speed the crew along with the work they complete, it can help them focus on the next tasks as well - like a thinking Monday.com chart.
Outside Habitat Comms
A critical part of the accomplishment of landing humans on Mars will be the footprints on the surface. Suits to achieve this are in progress through NASA. A similar suit will also be available through SpaceX if their Crew Dragon mission suits can be extended and developed for Mars.
Home Comms
Remember - most of the time the crew will be undertaking essential work to install, develop, operate and maintain critical life preserving systems. This will ensure that the first leg of human occupation of Mars is sustained well past the pre-preparation, first crew, relief crew, and consecutive crew missions.
As a result, there will be a great deal of data processing, design, trouble-shooting, simulation and mission support activity required. This will be done in an asynchronous way back on Earth.
to get the data back here, the Martian crew will need to send data over long-distance, interplanetary comms. This could be achieved in a variety of ways, but a critical part of this communication system will likely be x-ray beam emitter/ receivers.
Such systems are being tested in prototype phase on the ISS for just this reason.tb The small scale trial using the XCOM and MCER arrays installed on either end of the ISS as a transmitter and receiver station to test over a short test distance. The main drawback of the X-ray comms is the need for perfect alignment of the transmitter and receiver. This is a function of X-rays themselves. A tightly focused beam of electrons can miss a target much easier than radio waves which spread over distance laterally from the source.
Through prototypes and testing aboard current systems such as ISS, we can design and prove reliable systems in these 4 years ahead of the first crewed Mars mission in as soon as 2024.
You can reach me on Twitter @Ronnie_Writes.
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